


Trust

by bandwidthlimit



Series: Leverage Ficlets [1]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 00:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21290435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bandwidthlimit/pseuds/bandwidthlimit
Summary: Sophie does NOT like it when they switch jobs. Not at all. Written years ago, probably set toward season 1 or 2
Relationships: Sophie Devereaux/Nathan Ford
Series: Leverage Ficlets [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1840567
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	Trust

**Author's Note:**

> I own no rights to Leverage.

She enjoys watching Parker and Harsdison dance around their budding relationship. She likes their dynamic, she likes that Parker is often clueless and that Harsdison is careful. She likes watching it change the team. It brings out the big brother in Eliot and the papa bear in Nate. It grounds Parker in reality and it focuses Hardison’s attention.

They’ve always worked well as a team, but they are battle hardened now, and it appeals to her inner romantic that at their core, they can still love, and help each other through the things they would never tell anyone else.

Sophie doesn’t really remember her family. She does this on purpose. It’s hard to miss something you don’t remember, and it only bothers her when she thinks about who she used to be - who she could have been.

She doesn’t think about it often. Nate helps her with that. She doesn’t think about who she used to be with him. She thinks instead about what they are, what they will be. She knows this ‘friends with benefits’ charade is simply a means to an end. She’s not sure that Nate knows. For all that he’s a genius, he carries a remarkable blind spot when it comes to their relationship.

It makes surprising him that much easier. It’s Sophie’s favorite pass time. 

“You in there, Soph?”

There’s a familiar hand waving in front of her face and she jerks back to the present. “What? Oh. Yes. Sorry. What were you saying?”

Nate gives her a strange look, but recounts what he had said. “I was saying that I think your best method of entry is over here,” he clicks something and the blueprint on the screen zooms in.

Sophie instantly wishes she’d been paying more attention earlier.

“No. I don’t do air vents. That’s Parker’s thing.”

“I’ve already got Parker on the safe in Wellington’s office.”

“Hardison?”

“In the rental, keeping security off us.”

“Eliot.”

“Keeping security off of Parker.”

“I don’t understand why we need redundancy on security.”

“I skip redundancy in Plan M.”

“Uh-uh, no way. We are not using Plan M.” Hardison enters the room (stage left, Sophie thinks absently), shaking his head emphatically.

“Sophie.”

“Nate.”

“And I’m Hardison. What’s the hold up here? We got a plane to catch!”

“Right.” Sophie steels herself and smiles grimly. “Let’s get going.”

Later, when she’s tight in an air vent, she curses Nate’s name and decides that any future they have will not involve switching jobs like this. Who keeps their records in a different room than their office, anyway?

Someone who thinks like a thief, that’s who.

She smacks her elbow against the cool metal wall and curses, long and fluently and in multiple languages.

“Sophie.” Nate’s voice is quiet and terse in her ear, like it gets when he talks into his shoulder in front of a mark.

“What?” She snaps, moving forward toward the grate.

“We can all hear you.”

“Bugger off,” she pops the grate out and tries to remember how Parker told her to exit without falling on her face.

Parker derails her thoughts when she whispers,” Sophie’s scary when she’s angry,” over the comms. Eliot reminds Parker to concentrate and Sophie lets out a deep breath.

“C’mon, Soph. We’re running out of time here.”

“Stuff it, Nate. I told you I don’t do air vents.” She sneaks her hand out and slides it down the wall. A long way down the wall.

“If I believed you every time you said you don’t do something, we’d never get anything done.” He’s away from the mark now, speaking clearly.

“Nate,” her voice takes on a tone she doesn’t recognize, a voice from the past. She jerks her arm back into the vent like it’s been burnt. “I don’t think I can do this.”

He must know how much it kills her to admit it. They all must, and wisely stay silent.

“Hardison, move our feeds to a private line. Make sure Eliot and Parker get out.” Nate waits a moment until he’s sure that no one else is listening. “Sophie?”

“I’ll fall, Nate. I can’t.” Her voice is small.

“Sophie, do you trust me?”

She pauses, a moment too long, she knows, before she says, “Yes.”

He doesn’t mention it. She’s glad, but doesn’t say anything either. “Do you remember Venice?”

“Yes,” she says again, whispers it. “We were being shot at.”

“You were being shot at,” he corrects gently, a smile in his voice. “I was trying to arrest you.”

“Semantics,” she says, and manages a touch of humor.

“Of course. Do you remember the balcony, when Muzoni was right behind us?”

“Yes,” she dares to get closer to the grate again, ignoring her heart as it pounds erratically against her ribs. “You jumped, and looked up at me...”

“And when you jumped, I caught you. You trusted me even then.”

“Until you cuffed me right there, wanker.” There is definite humor in her voice now.

His laughter is soft and intimate in her ear. She welcomes it, and heaves a deep sigh as she pushes herself halfway into the room. 

“Trust me now, Soph. You can do this.”

She pretends he’s there to catch her and manoeuvres herself down the wall, into the room. When her feet touch the floor, she lets out a nervous laugh and says, “Okay. I’m in. What am I looking for?”

She pretends it didn’t happen when Eliot and Nate find her a ground floor exit. “Plan H,” Nate whispers, and she takes his hand and doesn’t let go - not during the long car ride to the airport,or on the longer flight home.

He doesn’t say anything when she lets herself into his bedroom later that night, or when she invites herself into his bed. It isn’t until after, as he runs his fingers through her hair and she listens to his heart beat, calm and regular in his chest, that he whispers, “I knew you could do it, Soph.”

This time, she is the one surprised. She presses a kiss to his shoulder, and finds she doesn’t mind.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written ages ago and posted on Livejournal.


End file.
